In the 2008-09 Legislative Session, the WA Legislature passed an "all but in name" domestic partnership bill. After a hotly contested signature drive, featuring a federal judge ordering the names of petition signers concealed (a first ever in State history, and in contradiction to State law), a referendum to repeal this act will be on the ballot.
To make it better, the way WA does referendums will mean that voting *for* the referendum will preserve the law, and voting *against* will repeal domestic partnership benefits. This opens a can of worms for all kinds of shenanigans.
The below is a recent editorial response of mine...
I have to ask - are heterosexuals so easily influenced and insecure in their relationships that the prospect of others enjoying the same rights as they do puts heterosexuals marriages in dire danger?
Is their commitment to their partner so insincere that it can only be preserved by denying others the same rights they enjoy?
Or are the proponents so flawed in their own eyes that they can only distract themselves from their inner agony that they must seek to control and denigrate others?
Does the fanaticism of their faith drive them to attempt to force us, a diversely populated state, to adhere to questionably constitutional (i.e., "God Told Me So" is inherently suspect as a reason for law-making) legal tradition at the expense of families, children, and communities?
Is it really necessary to legislate bigotry against the LGBT community, a historic scapegoat du jour?
GC
3 comments:
At the risk of stirring much shit, here's my resaoning for supporting civil unions, but not "marriages."
As with all "interest groups," as it were, 99.9% of the homosexual people I know want nothing more or less than anybody else, simply to live and to love and to mind their own business. It's that .1% that always causes problems. People that feel the need to browbeat anyone who doesn't immediately kowtow to their opinion. And those people scare me. Those are the people who, as soon as it's legally a "marriage," will sue the Catholic church in an attempt to force them to perform the ceremony, will sue the LDS church for the same, and so forth. That situation, to me, is unacceptable. What right do the courts have to force private institutions to violate their core principles in private matters?
Remember the 1st Amendment? A suit to compel any faith to marry persons whom its tenets would forbid is pretty much DOA ...
As examples, I would offer the Mormon, Jewish, Islamic (and various other sects) who range between moderately offensive and vile in their marriage prohibitions and compunctions...
And then note that attempts to compel them to modify their tenets have consistently gone down in flames as unconstitutional.
This one is a red herring.
What R71 does is repeal inheritance, hospital visitation, adoption, and other rights recentl acknowledged in WA.
By repealing "domestic partnerships"...so marriage isn't even on the table here - though I might argue that equality before the law well nigh requires it, eventually.
I've often held that in any case, it's high time civil marriage and religious marriage be divorced from each other to live happily ever after - separately.
I agree with you GC, the secular marriage and the sacred marriage need to be seperate.
Right now we have polygamists practicing polygamy even though they can only be legally married to one of their wives. Since it isn't a crime to have sex and produce children with someone not your legal spouse, it works for them. Although the children have legal standing and the mother of those children has legal standing.
I am beyond caring who does what in their bedrooms, and I hope that you keep the rights you've worked hard to get.
Post a Comment